Microsoft Slurps Up Activision Blizzard - Delayed Input 406
Added 2022-01-21 12:52:03 +0000 UTChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qWxjWyyAyU
No real surprise what topic I went with this week; hopefully it's different enough from the other hot takes out there to still be entertaining. I'll be back here for a post-show assessment on Sunday, so please leave any questions and feedback in the comments to this post.
Thank you!!
-Kyle
Comments
Very interesting observations. As someone who didn't read the press releases and interviews, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness. I will say Netflix is doing just fine, it's very profitable - the market re-assessed the growth-rate it priced into Netflix's share value. But I do wonder.. Has there been any feedback from developers/publishers with regard to their revenue on gamepass vs what they hoped or vs. what they projected they could have gotten w/ traditional sales? How does the gamepass revenue distribution work? I'm also wondering how much more MS will charge for gamepass, since they now have $70B in profit to answer for with this purchase. With single games taking up so much time to complete, I only play a dozen games a year across all 3 consoles, so gamepass is barely worth it as it is.
MrMattatee
2022-01-23 07:39:15 +0000 UTCThis was a quietly insightful episode. Like the commenter above, I was glad that you broke down the language of the release and also noted the shift in tone. It's as if Microsoft wants to *personally* assure investors and "the public" that it will not have the kinds of issues that Activion/Blizzard is having right now, since it will be under the direction of Our Boy Phil. Something that you hint at but don't make explicit is the importance of the language used, and to whom it is being aimed. The shift from "Xbox" to "Microsoft Game Studios" is subtle but so, so significant - it signals that these IPs are being treated as corporate products and so are no longer "just video games" but viable investments. Also, can I say: the first thought when I finished watching the episode was "good for him, he finally got a subscription to the WSJ." It sounds condescending (and in a jackass way it is) but the commodification of reliable journalism and information is such that being able to screencap the WSJ for a piece seems like a step up in your work? I don't know if I'm expressing this correctly. Great episode.
Liz Castro
2022-01-23 07:22:15 +0000 UTC
